Keeping Hope

 

Text: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Focus: Hope

Function: to help people not be afraid.

¹³But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. ¹⁴For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. ¹⁵For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. ¹⁶For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸Therefore encourage one another with these words.

This morning we are going to look in a bible study on this passage and hopefully understand better the great hope that we have.

I have to give credit where it is due. I got a lot of help for this sermon from an article the website Patheos.com I post links to all my sources and bible references on the web version of my sermon, so if anyone ever wants to know what I said and maybe why I said it, you can check it out later. Or if anyone wants to read the sermon because they missed a Sunday, they are there for you to study.

I love to use this passage of scripture at funerals. Brother Paul talks to us about grieving and I believe, implies that grief and grieving are necessary parts of the healing process.

He tells them that he wants us to grieve but not as those who have no hope. I can sort of change that to say, “grieve in hope.”

The hope that we he refers to in this passage is the hope of the resurrection.

And of course, the proof of that hope is the fact that Jesus died and then rose again.

When he rose, he was transformed. Remember, physically they did not recognize him until he did something that was personal or intimate for the people with whom he revealed himself.

Mary thought she was talking to the gardener until he called her name. With the disciples from Emmaus he burned the scriptures into their hearts and then broke bread with them and then they recognized him. With the eleven, he miraculously appeared inside the locked room where they were hiding. With Thomas, he singled out his doubt and addressed it and with again with the eleven, he filled their boat with fish. In all these cases, they didn’t recognize his physical form as the same.

When Jesus rose, they didn’t actually see the same physical body they remembered. What they saw was a glimpse of the glorified body that perhaps we will have as well. We don’t know what they will be. The Resurrected Jesus didn’t want Mary to touch him “because he was not yet glorified” but he also ate fish. So, who knows?

Even though the physical form was different, they believed in the fact of the resurrection That took some faith. And Paul reminds them that the same faith that overcame their doubts is the hope that they have now.

I point this to help us understand this passage and the rapture. The rapture is the belief that sometime either before, in the middle of, or at the end of, the Great Tribulation spoken of in the Book of the Revelations of St. John Jesus is going to snatch Christians off the planet and take them to heaven. If you read the Left Behind series, and many did, then you read how he imagined it happens at the beginning of the Tribulation and things get really bad on planet earth as God pours out his wrath on humanity.

This passage really isn’t referring to that scenario.

And for the King James readers, the word “prevent” meant “precede” in 1611.

But back to the doctrine of the rapture. It wasn’t taught or believed until 1827, John Darby published the doctrine from this passage. So, in the history of the church, it is a new doctrine and is really only embraced by the evangelical community.

I was raised the fear that Jesus was coming back and if I wasn’t ready, then I would be a victim of God’s final wrath.

But this passage is about hope. It says nothing about the wrath of God being poured out on humanity. It is the hope of a renewed heaven and earth with these same resurrected bodies that will never wear out.

Paul tells them us hold fast to this hope.

I do not believe that God wants us believers to dwell in fear. God gives God’s Spirit to believers in order to give them the power to be the witnesses for Christ in the brokenness of this world.

So, what about the rapture and the timing of it?

What Darby gets wrong in his interpretation is the difference between the Greek words for heavens and Air. The Greek word for Air is “air.” And the Greek word for heavens is “Oranus.”

Darby believed that the call of God by a Shout and the blast of the Trumpet were the final call to heaven for Christians off of planet earth.

But Paul is very clear in the passage that it is not heaven where we meet Christ, but in the clouds, or in the air. Jesus is coming back, indeed, and this phrase is another anchor for our souls. Matthew 25 gives us many considerations about the second coming of Christ. One of the things is “give me oil in my lamp and keep me burning.”

It is a reference to being prepared for the return to be a long time coming and at a time we don’t expect. He wants us to be vigilant about the fact that Christ is indeed returning.

And since Jesus was given this glorified body, I hope that so will we. Perhaps that is how we will meet Christ in the air.

The call and the Trumpet blast are references to the coming of God when He appeared to the Israelites in the wilderness when they escaped the Egyptians. When God gave them the first covenant.

The the call and trumpet are symbols that the next words coming were the Words of the Lord. And it appears that Paul is assuring them that these future events are destined to take place and we do not have to be afraid of death because they are ensured by the Word of the Lord.

He is reminding us that we are God’s and will be with God forever in our eternal reward.

And remember, the place where this happens is here on Planet Earth, not up in what Paul refers to in another place as the third heaven which is apparently the throne of God almighty.

There is a point to be made here that is very important and would have been understood.

We have been taught that the rapture is an escape from the wrath of God.

But this is not us leaving planet earth, this is God coming back to planet Earth to redeem and transform it.

Jesus is coming back, indeed. But not to bring God’s wrath to destroy planet earth, but to redeem it to its full potential by the power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the believer.

Paul preaches this passage because for some reason, they expected this second coming of Christ to be in their lifetime. But the Matthew Passage indicates that it is a mystery and at a time when we don’t expect it and it will appear to be delayed.

So, Jesus didn’t say it was in his lifetime, only that it was always going to be soon.

So, he calls us to be ready and waiting for his return, comforted in the hope of the certainty of it.